Yorkshire Wildlife Trust

Yorkshire Peat Partnership

Project Officer - Astrid Hanlon

The partnership will soon have its own website, but for now we hope you find this information useful. If you would like to find out more please call the Trust 01904 659570.

Our key messages!

• The upland peat resources are unique and valuable areas that require protection for future generations.

• The restoration of peat bogs to functioning healthy systems incurs many environmental and socioeconomic benefits such as water quality improvement and increased recreation potential.
• The Yorkshire Peat Partnership aims to implement best practice in order to monitor and restore upland peatlands successfully.
• Peatland restoration may aid climate change mitigation.

Latest News

A new website for the Yorkshire Peat Partnership

The Yorkshire Peat Partnership has now launched it’s very own website -

www.yppartnership.org.uk

With lots of information on the project, downloads, latest sightings there is plenty to take a look at and more to follow!

Government peat announcement welcomed by The Wildlife Trusts

But more ambitious targets needed, the conservation organisation urges

The Wildlife Trusts have welcomed the announcement from Rt Hon Hilary Benn today that the Government is calling for a phase-out of peat in compost material by 2020, but have warned that even greater urgency is needed if we are to restore and manage our peatlands effectively.

The leading conservation organisation has long campaigned against peat extraction, which can devastate habitat for many rare and specialised species, and which releases massive amounts of harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Paul Wilkinson, head of A Living Landscape for The Wildlife Trusts, said: “The Wildlife Trusts believe that extracting peat is an unsustainable practice, both because of its effects on wildlife and in terms of climate change. We are working hard to protect the UK’s peatlands – only last month Yorkshire Wildlife Trust announced its part in the Yorkshire Peat Partnership*, which aims to substantially increase the amount of peatlands restoration activity in the Yorkshire uplands.

“Peat bogs provide a habitat for many species, such as the peatland specialist, sundew, and peat soils store a huge amount of carbon.  They are one of our best assets in fighting climate change. On the flip side, drained and over-exploited peat soils give off huge amounts of carbon. In addition to their role in climate change, peatlands provide other benefits such as grazing land, grouse moors and clean water. Restoration may even protect property from flooding by storing more water on the hills during storms.

“The phasing out of peat in compost has begun and now needs to be accelerated on a much more ambitious timescale.  Otherwise, in the next 10 years, our peatlands will continue to experience unsustainable extraction and we will also be missing opportunities to manage and restore peatlands, with all of the subsequent benefits this can bring.”

Restoring Peatlands, welcome to the Yorkshire Peat Partnership.

The newly formed Yorkshire Peat Partnership aims to substantially increase the amount of peatlands restoration activity in the Yorkshire uplands through a combination of restoration, management and monitoring.

Peatlands are hugely important habitats that are home to an array of unique plants and animals. Peat contains a large amount of carbon, in fact, globally, peat contains the largest amount of carbon of all terrestrial ecosystems. In damaged peatlands carbon is released to the atmosphere in the form of CO2. By restoring and conserving peatlands the amount of CO2 released is reduced which may help to abate the effects of climate change. Peatlands also have potential economic value in terms of carbon credits, water storage and recreational activity.

Over recent decades thousands of hectares of peatlands have been lost and degraded. The Yorkshire region alone contains nearly 70,000 ha of upland peat which has been subject to drainage, extraction, grazing and recreational pressure, all of which have compounded the problem of peat erosion. Following the Second World War, thousands of kilometres of drainage channels were cut into Yorkshires peatlands to improve agricultural production and maintain sheep grazing. However, in most cases, the channels have served to compound peat erosion by drying out peatlands, resulting in a loss of carbon and valuable bog habitat.

The Yorkshire Peat Partnership not only aims to restore and enhance peatlands but also to collect vital information through monitoring and research that may contribute to the development of peatland restoration science and guide future restoration techniques.

The working partnership consists of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Natural England, Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority and North York Moors National Park Authority with further support secured from the Environment Agency. The wider steering group consists of Moors for the Future, Pennine Prospects, National Trust, Nidderdale AONB and the Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust.

Research Officer Astrid Hanlon said: “Restoring peatlands is vital not only for the unique animals and plants that they support but also to aid in the battle against climate change.”

The ultimate goal of the Yorkshire Peat Partnership is to contribute to the restoration of degraded peatland habitats to help to re-instate functioning, peat forming ecosystems. In turn, this will help increase biodiversity and reduce the amount of CO2 being released into the atmosphere. Along with research, education and community engagement, careful restoration of our peatland habitats may ensure that they can be enjoyed by future generations to come.